Whenever there is gist about lack of savings during last admin and they say governors didn't want to save, the comeback is why didn't FG save its share. With the way the federation finances are set up by law, this was not doable. A thread to explain.
Starting point is the Constitution which was designed based on pre-democracy mindset where all money came into the FG and was then distributed to States. It requires ALL revenue to go into ONE Consolidated Revenue Fund account from where it is shared among FG, States and LGs.
The Constitution then says that NO money can be taken out of CRF unless in the manner specified by NASS i.e. through Appropriation. This meant saving was virtually impossible unless built into budget process. When NOI joined 2003/04 the key focus was to save as oil prices rose. 
To save and also smoothen out revenue as there was no consistency given that all money goes into CRF and fluctuates due to oil price volatility, they implemented the oil benchmark price budgeting process. The excess above the benchmark was paid into an Excess Crude Account at CBN
From the get go the ECA was illegal. The Constitution is clear where ALL revenue should go. The states were not happy and agitated but OBJ was too powerful and his anyhowness went largely unchecked by NASS. The ECA continued to build up as oil price rose and helped pay off debt.
When Yar'Adua came in it was no surprise whose side he was on being a former governor. One of his first acts was to order the sharing of part of the ECA balance. When money is shared from ECA it is done through the CRF as it is treated as a revenue inflow and used to fund budget.
Aganga led the effort to address the illegal construct of the ECA by pushing through the creation of a Sovereign Wealth Fund which was made legal by the National Sovereign Investment Authority Act signed into law by GEJ in 2011. This was a vehicle owned by the Federation, not FG.
After the first $1B which was written into the law was transferred to the NSIA, the governors started agitating against further funding. They demanded to share the ECA balance and even went to court. GEJ acquiesced and money was shared through CRF per normal practice.
Now to address issue of why FG didn't save its share, there was simply no vehicle to do so. The ECA is an account that continually gets funded from excess oil income and the money in there belongs to all 3 tiers, it would have been incredibly stupid to leave FG's share in there.
Once money is earmarked to be shared from ECA, it is moved to CRF. From CRF money can only go to budgeted items. If savings is not a line item in budget, FG can't take money from CRF and park in some account somewhere. The Constitution is pretty clear on this, forget what OBJ did
SWF was designed as a Federation vehicle as mentioned earlier, so FG could also not send only its own share there. Given the illegality of the ECA and adversarial nature of NASS during GEJ's time, it would have been suicidal to have created some account in CBN to park FG's share.
Only viable option was to use the money to fund budget and implement projects. The outcomes of FG and state spending are easily comparable to see who made best use of ECA funds. Key error was to set up the SWF as a Federation vehicle, which was done to mirror the ECA.
The SWF should have been set up as a FG vehicle with clear savings/funding parameters set in stone. This would have mirrored the fact that Nigeria is a federation and states should have gone off on their own to set up own savings vehicles as Peter Obi did with much success.
True it would have been a bit sub optimal and more expensive on aggregate to have multiple set ups but it would have created an opportunity to truly hold FG accountable for lack of savings. People want OBJ type savings but forget it was illegal and easier to get away with then.
To end this, in my view the NSIA Act needs to be amended so that it clearly states that 25% of Nigeria's oil revenue should automatically go into the SWF. This way there is no longer any debate. It should also mop up the entire ECA balance once and for all and shut that down. End
